Vladimir Putin

The Russian president is currently embroiled in a bewildering array of crises, yet seems impervious to everything his opponents can throw at him. So how should the West respond? It’s one of the TV moments of 2021. Good Morning America, March 17. The host is George Stephanopoulos, former communications director under Bill Clinton and one […]

The Russian president is testing the resolve of the West, but in doing so he reveals his weakness rather than his strength.

Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a prison hospital over concerns the opposition leader is dangerously ill and could die “at any minute”. It comes as doctors released paperwork showing Navalny – who has been on hunger strike for nearly three weeks – was in danger of a heart attack or kidney failure. In a […]

The US has announced a raft of new sanction on Russia over their interference in the 2020 US presidential election. This comes as Britain accused Russia’s foreign intelligence agency of responsibility for a major cyberattack affecting thousands of organisations in the West. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it had been assessed that it […]

When former Financial Times editor LIONEL BARBER was granted an audience at the Kremlin, Russia’s president proclaimed the end of the liberal idea. Was he right?

The same factors that led up to his incursion into Ukraine are in place again, including domestic protests, a struggling economy and a desire for glory. So are the likes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania next on the Russian leader's list?

Alexei Navalny has done his bit, but only the president’s corrupt inner circle have the power to topple him. “I mortally offended him by surviving an attempt on my life that he ordered. That’s driving this thieving little man in his bunker out of his mind. Murder is the only way he knows how to […]

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is descending into the biggest transatlantic diplomatic crisis since the Iraq War. CATHRIN SCHAER explains how we got here

The brave young journalists exposing the high-level corruption and crimes in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Over 3,500 people have been detained during rallies across Russia in protest at high-level corruption and the arrest of opposition activist Alexei Navalny. Navalny was arrested on arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on January 17 as he flew in after […]

Much maligned and under attack from ministers – but more important than ever. Media studies doesn’t deserve the ‘Mickey Mouse’ tag, argues Martin McQuillan. In last week’s New European Ian Dunt gave us 15 bold steps to fix Britain. Top of his list was making media studies mandatory in schools. He suggested that equipping school children to approach […]

Berlin has been long been seen as the European capital most understanding – and indulgent – of Russia. But that’s  changing, says CATHRIN SCHAER. For several years now, German newspapers have been proclaiming the next new low in the German-Russian relationship. There was 2015’s Russian hacker attack on the German parliament that started the decline. Then the assassination […]

Liana Semchuk on whether Alexei Navalny’s reappearance in Russia could galvanise change in the country in the same way as Lenin just over a century ago. Political commentators both inside Russia and around the world are comparing Alexei Navalny’s return to Moscow with Vladimir Lenin’s ‘sealed train’ journey from Switzerland to St Petersburg in April 1917. It […]

Joe Biden will be an infinitely tougher prospect for Vladimir Putin than Donald Trump. Yet the Russian president still has time on his side, says JOHN KAMPFNER. George W Bush, not a man commonly thought of as soft, said this of Vladimir Putin at their first meeting in 2001: “I looked the man in the […]

Russian president Vladimir Putin is going to “wait” for the final results before commenting on the conclusion, a spokesperson has claimed. While most world leaders have congratulated Joe Biden on his win, Putin has yet to comment on Donald Trump’s loss. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they would wait for the final outcome before providing […]

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a leading expert on chemical weapons, talks to MATT WITHERS about being on Vladimir Putin’s radar, weaponising Covid and complacency about the threats facing the West. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon’s autobiography starts like the opening of a high-octane film. It is February 1991, the protagonist, on his first military tour, is in the […]

Anti-Western philosopher Aleksandr Dugin is said to hold sway over Vladimir Putin. But it is not just the Russian president who is in thrall to him